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A chat with Victor Tsaran, Accessibility Program Manager

One of my fellow Yahoos, Victor Tsaran, was on a local morning news show this week, talking about his work. Victor is a program manager on the Accessibility team here at Yahoo!.

The Accessibility team’s charter is to work with product teams, including Messenger, to make our technologies as usable as possible for disabled users.

Seeing Victor on TV reminded me of the interview I did with him in early 2007, not long after the blog started. In the video below, Victor shows me how a blind person can use Yahoo! Messenger. Close your own eyes, pretend your mouse is useless, and then think about how you would use Yahoo! Messenger.

With the help of screen reader software, a visually impaired user can enjoy the Internet and products like Yahoo! Messenger. This kind of software responds to a user’s key commands. It scans the page or application and reads the content aloud. In this way, visually impaired users can “hear” where they are on the screen or web page.

Because it reads the words aloud, a screen reader may sound wordy to people unaccustomed to it. But a visually impaired user who is adept at using the reader can set the audio playback at a lightening pace. When Victor demonstrated how he uses Yahoo! Messenger with a screen reader, it sounded to me like supersonic gibberish. But as you’ll see in the video below, Victor slowed it down for my (and perhaps yours) less able ears.

Needless to say, it gave me a unique perspective on what it’s like for a visually impaired user to use Yahoo! Messenger. For more about Victor – even his life outside of Yahoo! – check out this article and video from the Yahoo! Corporate Blog.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Setting up voice and video in Yahoo! Messenger 10

If you’ve upgraded to Yahoo! Messenger 10 or got a new webcam recently, chances are you’ll want to try out the high-quality voice and video call features.

As a first step, we recommend that you complete the “Voice and Video Setup” steps to ensure that your microphone, speakers/headphones, and webcam are working properly.

To get started, click on the Messenger menu and select “Preferences”. When the Preferences window opens, click “Video & Voice” on the left hand menu. This will bring up your options on the right hand side:

If you know immediately which devices you want Yahoo! Messenger to use for your camera, microphone etc., just select them in the drop down menu. Depending on your type of computer and other software or hardware you have installed, you may only have one or many options available.

For a guided setup, click the “Open Voice and Video Setup” link in the Preferences window. This will take you through three setup steps where you can select the devices you want to use for your microphone, speakers/headset and webcam. After selecting each one in the setup, you’ll be able to test and confirm they are working.

Once you’ve successfully completed the Voice and Video Setup steps, you’ll be ready to start making free PC-to-PC calls, full-screen video calls and even calls from Messenger to regular and mobile phones (premium account required). You can also click the “Place a free test call” link in the Preferences window to try out the voice feature.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Updated version of Yahoo! Messenger 10 now available

Today we released an updated version of Yahoo! Messenger 10 (version 10.0.0.1241).

This latest release includes several bug fixes to enhance stability and performance of our new video call feature. Several of the fixes improve video calling on PCs running Windows 7.

You can download the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger 10 from our website.

And as always, we welcome feedback about your experience with the product. Just go to the Help menu and select “Send Feedback…” to get started.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Happy 15th Birthday Yahoo!

Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo in their early days at Stanford

Today is Yahoo!’s 15th birthday – hooray! It’s been a long ride and we’re grateful that our users, all 600 million of them, have come along for the ride.

We’ve had the unique opportunity to help create an industry and shape the online world, and will continue to focus on the values that brought us here —working hard, having fun, being passionate about your ideas, believing in each other, and always trying to invent the future. And as we celebrate 15 years today, we are even more excited than ever about what lies ahead, and the potential of Yahoo! and the Internet.

Of course, founders Jerry Yang and David Filo didn’t set out to start one of the world’s largest Internet companies or to lead a movement that has changed the world. They were just a couple of Stanford graduate students doing our research (supposedly) while their professor was on sabbatical.

More interesting than their research was their total fascination with the web and all the cool stuff it suddenly made available. But it was incredibly hard to keep track of the thousands of great websites sprouting up everywhere. Jerry and David thought it would be fun to catalog the sites by developing a simple directory. So all this began with nothing more than a hobby to help other early Internet users.

They soon learned a huge lesson just as relevant today as then: change and growth on the Internet happen at warp speed—especially if you’re filling a need. With the proliferation of websites and with hundreds of thousands of people accessing the Yahoo! guide, it was simply impossible for Jerry and David to continue doing this on our own.

Internet growth continues to be simply phenomenal, and we’re nowhere near done. Fifteen years ago, there were 18,000 web sites and fewer than 10 million people globally on the Internet—less than one third of a single percent of the world’s population at the time. Today there are more than 200 million websites with 90,000 created daily. There are estimated to be 1.6 billion people on the internet today—about 25 percent of the world’s population.

These numbers are astonishing, but even more important and more exciting is the impact that the Internet is having on so many people around the world. From socio-economic opportunities to more accessible health care to educating the next generation and beyond, the Internet has changed the way we live, work and learn. It has overcome geographic and political barriers and has made it possible for people to raise their voices as they seek greater economic opportunity and freedom. And Yahoo! has been a leader in enabling these tremendous technological advancements every step of the way.

All this in just 15 years. Yahoo! has been built by thousands of dedicated employees, hundreds of millions of loyal users and scores of advertisers who envisioned a future that was exciting, challenging and at times daunting. We are confident that 15 years from today, we will look back in marvel at how far you, and the Internet have traveled in such a short time. Just as we are doing today.

Read more on the Yahoo! Corporate Blog

Thanks to you, the users, for continuing to support us and use products like Yahoo! Messenger. We’ll be celebrating at all the Yahoo! offices today and know that if we could, we’d send each of you a slice of Yahoo! birthday cake.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Maintenance scheduled for March 2

We will be performing some server maintenance tomorrow, March 2, from 7pm to 11pm PST (4 hours).

During that time, some of our voice features will be affected. The Call History feature within Yahoo! Messenger for Windows (9.0, 10) will not be available. To view your call history (PC-to-Phone calls only) during the maintenance period, please visit the Yahoo! Voice website.

In addition, any PC-to-PC calls made or received in Yahoo! Messenger during that time will not be added to your Call History. PC-to-Phone calls will be archived normally.

The maintenance work will also affect Yahoo! Messenger for the Web. If you use this version, you will not be able to view your online message archive during this time, nor will conversations during the maintenance period be archived.

Note that IM conversation archiving in our Windows and Mac versions will not be affected during the maintenance period.

We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Downtime for premium voice services this Sunday

Our premium PC-to-Phone and Phone In services will be unavailable from Sunday, February 28 at 9pm PST until March 1, 1am (4 hours). This means you will not be able to use Yahoo! Messenger to make or receive phone calls from mobile or landline phones during this time.

We will be making some system upgrades to the services which require us to take them offline for 4 hours.

Please note that PC-to-PC calling and all other Yahoo! Messenger features will be working normally.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Thanks for your patience,

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Innovation or humiliation?

I saw an ABC News story on our front page yesterday about a new site called chatroulette.com. It’s a webcam chat site where you are randomly paired with another stranger with whom you can video chat. Webcam chat communities are not a new concept, but the randomness of chatroulette is.

Started by a 17-year old in Russia, the site stirs up many discussions about inappropriate content, age requirements, and the effect it can have on users, who may be dismayed by people skipping over them once they’re connected. One comment on youtube says “Chat Roulette = Lowering self esteem, waste of time.” Chatroulette seems like the old “Hot or Not?” trend, but taken to the extreme.

Watch the ABC News report below. Is this a positive or a negative innovation? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Vote for Video Calls in the About.com IM Awards

Thanks to everyone who has voted for Yahoo! Messenger in About.com’s Reader’s Choice Awards. We are still behind in the Best IM Feature category, for which our video call feature in version 10 was nominated.

Click the link below to vote for us – we appreciate it!

Vote for video calls as Best IM Feature

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Will you be my Valentine?

This Sunday is Valentine’s Day here in the United States. I think we should show our love all year round, but people love excuses for buying gifts and expensive chocolates. We ladies don’t mind receiving them either.

But if you’re not with your loved one this Valentine’s Day, don’t forget to send your hugs and kisses with Yahoo! Messenger 10.

Turn on the Falling Hearts IMVironment while you’re chatting to add some romance to the conversation (bit the Buzz button for some extra spice).

Or send one of our loving emoticons like lovestruck (), blushing (), the always popular kiss (), big hug () and a favorite hidden emoticon, the rose ()… check out the full list of Emoticons to find the right one for you. Hopefully you won’t be sending this one on Valentine’s Day: .

We’ve also got some saucy audibles under the “Flirts” category including classic pickup lines like “I hope you know CPR cuz you take my breath away” and pirate-enhanced flattery, “Arr! Your booty shivers me timbers!”.

And just when the kissing and blushing emoticons are flying back and forth, throw in the “Is it just me or is it getting really hot in here?” audible. To send a flirtatious audible, click the audibles button in the IM window, go to More Audibles > See All Audibles.

If you haven’t had a chance to try out the new video call feature, what better reason than to tell someone, almost in person, that you love them? I promise, it’s almost like being there. And don’t worry, you can send all the emoticons and audibles you want while you’re on the call.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Poll: Video call features